Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Friday February 05, 2010 @02:13PM
from the zoom-zoom-splat dept.

Scifi83 writes "A team of researchers at the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS) has filled the trunk of an Audi TTS with computers and GPS receivers, transforming it into a vehicle that drives itself. The car will attempt Pikes Peak without a driver at race speeds, something that's never been done."

Some say he can steer a car just by thinking evasive thoughts.And if he turns the wheel, the road will slide easily underneath his car like a waitress with Tiger Woods.All I know is that it'll be driven by The Stig.

The car is named after Michèle Mouton, her nickname apparently was Shelley, the most successful female rally driver to date. Apparently she's considered the most successful female driver in all of motorsports. And it just so happens she drove Audi's and she was the first woman to win the Pikes Peak hill climb. I'd say that's a far more appropriate reference than anything from Asimov.

While the algorithms that make it handle like a racecar seem interesting I'm more concerned about the algorithms for emotion, I mean the headline says this driver-less car will "brave" Pikes Peak. How exactly is the bravery implemented? What if next it decides to "brave" global domination?

How exactly is the bravery implemented? What if next it decides to "brave" global domination?

Don't worry! The scientists have that covered.

To have bravery, you first must have fear. So the first and most difficult step was to program the car to be afraid all the time. Then, to get bravery, they simply program it to ignore its fear when it's driving up Pike's Peak.

The rest of the time it's a total scaredy-car. If you think it's trying to dominate the globe, just shout "boo!" at it and it'll drive off to cower in the corner and cry.

That's not too different from when the humans are driving, then. Lots of people of course still stand in the most retarded places possible, and occasionally pay for that dearly when somebody misses the braking point by a fraction of a second.

But does Mount Washington have an annual, scheduled race period where the road is closed to everyone except racers? The Pikes Peak Hill Climb is one of the oldest auto races in the world and has been held for close to 100 years.

The biggest event [mountwashi...adrace.com] on the Mt Washington auto road is actually a running race held each summer. It's an intermediate distance road race - about 8 miles (12.7 km) long. But it's uphill all the way [mountwashi...adrace.com]: there's 4600 ft (1400 m) of elevation gain, which tends to make it feel more like a half marathon. Also, it's held on the mountain that claims to have the "world's worst weather [google.com]." It is not atypical for the course start to have temperatures in a 60s at the start of the race under clear skies, only to have the ru

I drove up there once around my birthday (mid-September), but not all that fast - I drove an F-150 pickup. I enjoyed it immensely, especially the thick rime covering everything at the station at the top. Do they still claim the fastest recorded wind speed of 230-something mph?

Having raced up Pikes Peak myself, I think this is pretty impressive. The road surface varies from almost-pavement-quality treated packed dirt, to completely loose gravel on rut-filled rock, with (as I recall) an average 10% climb. It'd be a great test ground for offroad stuff at a slow speed with nobody else on the road, but doing it at full speed requires a *lot* more than just the ability to see where the roadway is: giving a robot the ability to keep a fast car from skidding/sliding on loose gravel on an off-camber turn appears to me to be a wholly different type of challenge than previous autonomous driving projects.

Rapid reaction time, good slide slip sensors, and some great counterintuitive steering routines are all going to be essential if this is going to be "at race speeds". Good trained drivers screw this kind of thing up all the time. A robot can be programmed to be repeatable, but is this one flexible enough to conditions to be fast AND safe?

Rapid reaction time, good slide slip sensors, and some great counterintuitive steering routines are all going to be essential if this is going to be "at race speeds".

Unfortunately, *realtime* reaction time has nothing to do with staying on the road if physics wont allow it. If you go into a corner too fast, then you're quick reaction could put you into a beautiful sideways controlled drift, right past the point where the surface of the road stops existing. This means the car must also have some very impressive "look ahead". If it doesn't have a map of the road, it'll have to predict a safe speed for any blind turns (I imagine nearly all of them are) while considering th

Definitely, I just don't see them letting the car drive up there without a map. It's difficult enough for human drivers to turn in competitive times without pace notes, but it's going to be even more difficult for a computer to deal with.

The most interesting part here, IMO, is seeing how the car deals with driving at racing speed vs the more leisurely pace of the previous AI challenge race, where, IIRC, the cars averaged below 30km/h. At those sorts of speeds the car just goes where the wheels are pointing

"giving a robot the ability to keep a fast car from skidding/sliding on loose gravel on an off-camber turn appears to me to be a wholly different type of challenge than previous autonomous driving projects."

Actually, that's the easy part. It's called Traction Control [audiusa.com], and it's standard on pretty much all cars sold in the US these days. Given that the article mentions how they're using a lot of Audi's electronics and sensor systems, I expect they'll leave these systems in place.

I don't think Traction Control handles the problem I'm pointing out. It's one thing to actively control the torque going to the wheels to prevent them sliding. It's a completely different thing to be on a long straight, going fast, and decide that the approaching hairpin turn is filled with gravel and sand and you need to slow down *now*. I've seen people slide off curves with their ABS brakes on full because they misjudged the road conditions and went into a turn too fast. No amount of traction control

Most drivers I've talked to with far more experience driving on gravel than I do seem to be of the opinion that traction control = BAD NEWS on gravel and that even moderately experienced drivers can do far better than what any TCS can do/allows you to do in terms of maintaining control on gravel.

Most TC systems are apparently tuned more towards pavement or ice/snow, not towards gravel.

There's also the fact that, as you state, taking a turn properly requires prior knowledge of the conditions of that turn - t

I'm curious when you raced Pikes Peak - I watched the race a couple of years ago from lower on the course, and the road was tarmac at that point. It's my understanding that every year the road's owners pave a little more of it, with the goal of eventually paving all the way to the top - they want to make it easier for the tourists to reach the summit. Changes the nature of the PPHC, but economics wins out. Now if 'Shelley' has to handle both tarmac and gravel in the same run, that's actually fairly impress

I did it once on a motorcycle back in the mid-1980's and then a couple more times on a bicycle in the mid-90's. (Not that it's worth anything to anyone else but I managed to beat a bunch of pro racers in one of the bike races. The only way you can legally bike up PP is during the race, since it's closed to bicycles the rest of the year.)

It might not just be economics: there is an enormous amount of environmental damage done by maintaining a high-altitude, high-traffic dirt road. The city of Colorado Spr

I was mostly thinking "make sure there aren't any pedestrians in the way" and "make sure that when it falls off the mountain, it doesn't land on anything important," but getting the passengers out would be valuable too.

This projects strikes me a extremely elitist. I want to see a robot driving a
huge bus full of robot passengers doing their regular robot things, like
optimizing their energy efficiency, updating their belief systems from a trusted
repository, and compressing old files.

The researchers have programmed Shelley to handle like a racecar by using a set of computer calculations called algorithms

See what happens when you let Liberal Arts majors playing journalist direct the public's understanding of technical things?

Soon: "John's car rolled out of his driveway all by itself and hit a fire hydrant, honey! He should sue General Motors for faulty algorithms!"

You're ridiculing the author for clearly and correctly defining the terminology? If the intended audience [stanford.edu] of the article [stanford.edu] is unlikely to know what "algorithm" means, don't you think a concise definition is in order? Now, I'm sure that writers assuming an Ivy League audience [harvard.edu] would reasonably expect people to know what the big words mean.

Not to mention the fact that there are many Computer Science and Engineering majors who are also capable of effective communication; this is not the sole domain of "liberal a

I have an image in my mind of the Price is Right Cliffhangers game, where the guy goes right over the top when you lose. Oh, and the song [televisiontunes.com] is now firmly implanted in my brain for the rest of the day.

Doh. But isn't it at least *mildly* interesting that a brick's terminal velocity is just about the same 130 MPH? Something needs to make me feel better about completely missing the point (and spending the time doing the math).:)

Audi, specifically Audi Quattros, have been rally car favorites for years. Big engine, good tranny, four wheel drive. There are a lot of people that know how to get them running well, and the cars are built well to do the job.

Specifically Audi Quattros? That's anything made by Audi with AWD. It's the exact same system as used by Volkswagen and called 4Motion, where they use torsen LSDs with a 5:1 maximum slip ratio, with the maximum slip then limited by automatic application of the ABS. Porsche uses basically the same thing. The most likely explanation is that Subaru and Mitsubishi have enough WRC wins to not need the publicity, but the post-VW-acquisition Audi could use some positive press, and it's worth it to provide a car an

From what I remember, 4Motion does not necessarily refer to an AWD system with a torsen differential, although this has been the case in several instances (VW have also used a viscous coupling for AWD). Quattro, on the other hand, refers to a very specific set of technologies.

As far as the engines go, Audi make one of the better (if not the best) 2 Liter engines out there. They put most V6s to shame.

If you were going to build a robot car, why not build it out of something you can get real cheap. Like, say, you know, your Grandma's Plymouth Aries K.

They specifically state in the article that they're shooting for real racing speeds. While I don't know what a Plymouth Aries is, I think my grandma has a Reliant. I'm pretty sure that isn't going up Pike's Peak at anything like racing speeds.

The Audi is a car that can let drivers shine, and any flaw in the driving algorithm will be quickly apparent at high

I may be off because I'm not an expert in optimal control theory or nonlinear dynamics but I'm gonna guess it's because the Audi offers 4WD and in turn a much more stable platform through what are very "dynamic" turns. Consider the mathematics throughout a turn on gravel while applying power with a 2WD versus a 4WD. Would the 4WD be easier to control? I propose it would be.

Then again it could be because Audis are great at rally racing and they got one for cheap.

The Audi will also come with a lot of built-in "don't drive off the road" features called algorithms.Fortunately for the stanford team, Audi has already figured out computer controls to mostly keep the car from spinning out or locking up the brakes when presented with mostly reasonable inputs. They have to make it run up the mountain without creating any unreasonable inputs now.

The best rally cars, as evinced by their superior records, are the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo and the Subaru Impreza. The Impreza is the only car to win the WRC four years in a row. The Lancer Evo has better weight-distribution and about the same cojones but is more "touchy" by most reports, probably because of the superior weight-distribution; Having more front weight makes the car more reluctant to swap ends. The Subaru has the least body roll and best CG due to its "Symmetric AWD" design. Audi is now an also-

Once you get past the boring intro... damn! That is some fancy drivin'! Drifting through turns at such high speeds on unpaved roads inches away from a cliff-top drop to certain death... Makes me wonder how he can drive comfortably with such enormous balls.

It's going to be interesting to see how the car detects and handles the drainage culverts. The last few miles have corrugated metal drainage culverts crossing the road periodically to carry off the snowmelt. These often get overloaded and instead you have a big mud puddle with a hard metal culvert under the mud. Humans can use a little intelligence and slow down for these. It will be interesting to see how the automated Audi handles these and other unexpected situations!

My understanding is that this [wikipedia.org] is generally solved but doesn't really lead to anything interesting unless you know the right formulas for the for the domain. Any news on whether they got passed formula 1?

The Mt. Evans road is paved all the way. I understand
Pike's has some gravel. I've
been on Evan's but not Pike's. It was challenging for me as a human
being from sea level, who hadn't had enough time
to acclimate*. For a robot it doesn't seem like such
a big deal.

*The worst effects of mountain sickness came after
getting back down. The cumulative effects gave
me a wicked headache.

Pike's Peak has gravel, packed dirt, some asphalt, the works! The change in altitude plays HELL with the engine output even on turbocharged cars so there are many many variables at work. Oh, there's not great guardrails either I understand....

I've never been on Mt. Evans, but being from Colorado Springs (at the base of Pikes Peak), I have driven up Pikes Peak. Not as a racer, mind you, just as a tourist, in my '02 Saturn SL2.

It's not a simple road. Even going slowly, you definitely have to pay attention. Lots of loose gravel and dirt where a moments inattention can result in a skid where you go driving right off the side of the mountain. And as others have pointed out, the difference in elevation wreaks havoc on engine efficiency - going f

Still needs speech (partially possible), a bar of moving lights (existing), turbo boost (as the lowriders for assistance) and super pursuit mode (might be a biit hard, to accelerate time itself to twice the normal speed.;)

Wait for a Chinese-Russian joint-venture, producing KARR! ^^And David Hasselhoff with a goatee!

KARR was not built by the Russians or Chinese. The Knight Automated Roving Robot was the prototype for KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand). When KARR was powered up for the first time, A programming error (or perhaps a faulty algorithm!!) made its AI unstable and dangerous. Namely KARR was programmed for self-preservation instead of preservation of human life, as KITT was.

I don't see how this has any relation to driving on actual roads. This is a marked-off course with no cross streets, pedestrians, bicycles, or other vehicles. Even under these very special conditions there's no guarantee it won't drive into the wall or off into thin air. Or hit a mule deer. Or get stuck in a mud-puddle/culvert.